Brookfield couple adorns Newtown memorial with 26 concrete angels

NEWTOWN -- Paul Dos Santos knelt down next to the hundreds of stuffed animals and flower bouquets awash in candlelight at the downtown Sandy Hook memorial Wednesday night, and carefully placed a concrete angel at the edge.

Slowly, 25 more matching cherubs were placed in a row, a tea light set beside each one. Dos Santos, his wife Crystal and their friends and family were among hundreds paying their respect at the growing memorial, which was nearly overflowing from the corner of Washington Avenue and Church Hill Road.

The couple made the trip from their Brookfield home after spending two days casting the angels, which appeared to be a foot tall.

"It's for the children," Dos Santos said, explaining he intended to leave the angels up the hill at Sandy Hook School, but it remained off-limits to the public Wednesday night. "It was something that we could make that was going to hold up through the weather." Now, he hoped, the families of the 20 children and six adults killed at Sandy Hook might take the angels to their graves.

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Crystal Dos Santos said the couple had one of the cherubs in their yard when they realized Paul had the mold to make more, which they could give to the Sandy Hook victims.

"This was the one thing that we saw that we could offer," she said. "We saw it and realized it would be something beautiful we could contribute."

After all, "they are all angels," she said of the victims.

Ruby Dingee, Crystal's mother, thought of her own family as she placed the angels to honor the Sandy Hook families.

"I have children, and grandchildren that are basically about their age," she said, referring to the 20 children killed. We've come "to show respect."

Mindful of the masses that cannot make the trip to Newtown or Sandy Hook in person, Dingee said everyone has something they can offer. "Just pray and come together," she said.

Paul Dos Santos said one day he would like to give the angles to the victim children's families.